He gives a low chuckle. “Sadly so. And Donovan, keeping him around has become problematic. Only, dragon blood is what fuels the magic of our rings. I can’t let it go to waste.” He holds up his right hand and thumbs the wide band of his Order ring. He told me once it was a class ring, and it could easily pass for one, with its wide platinum band and the Saint George’s cross engraved on the face. I’d thought the etching around the edge was decorative. The font is tiny and hard to read. But now that I’m studying it up close, I realize it’s the inscription—the same quote as was written in blood above Lucy Vale’s head—Astra inclinant, sed non obligant.
“I saw your ring transform into a weapon before,” I say, lashes fluttering.
“Would you like to see?” A dimple appears in his cheek, and the ring glows blue. With a twist of his wrist, it transforms into the crossbow he used to shoot Connor.
“That’s… incredible,” I say breathlessly. I try to make it sound like I’m amazed instead of terrified. “Do you ever run out of bolts?”
“That’s the best part. Once I fire, they regenerate. It takes a few seconds, longer if my energy is low.”
“It draws from your personal energy?”
He waves his hand, and the crossbow becomes a ring again. “It feels like a hard workout afterward. It’s… rewarding.” Of course it is. He probably loves killing.
“Did you use it to kill Lucy Vale?”
He leans in closer, sniffing the side of my neck, and it’s all I can do not to sprint for the exit. “No. It can be whatever I want it to be. I prefer the crossbow because it’s useful when your prey has wings, but Lucy—for her I used a blade. She didn’t know what she was. She couldn’t fly.”
“Then why did you kill her?”
He draws back and raises an eyebrow. “I would have thought a mind like yours would have figured it out.”
I study his face. He’s a clinical psychopath with soulless eyes and a heartlessly flirty grin, as if this is a test, a test to see if I’m clever enough to figure out what he did. A test to see if I’m truly wife material, perhaps. Or maybe he likes my books and wants to feel like he’s just as clever as one of my villains. “I bet you killed Lucy to attract the dragons to Europe. To Paris.”
He smacks the bars above my head. “Yes. You truly are bright for a woman. I knew you would be when I chose you.” He stares down at me, teeth gleaming. “Go on.”
“I don’t think your goal was for a dragon to kidnap me. That seemed to surprise you as much as it did me. But you did want them there for some reason. It couldn’t have been about humans though because they don’t know dragons exist. Plus, when I was taken, you told no one, which means you didn’t want the humans to know.”
“So close. You’re almost there.” His voice drops to a seductive whisper and he runs the back of his nails along the outside of my arm.
I flash him a dazzled look as if tosay he’s so very intelligent, but then duck under his arm and start pacing the space between the cells like I need to walk to think. My ridiculous heels clack on the concrete as I rub my chin. What I’m really doing is scanning everything, every corner of this dungeon. “Since you clearly didn’t care what the humans thought about the dragons’ response to Lucy being murdered, you must have wanted someone else to notice.” Quickly I put it all together like a plot I’m writing that is only now working itself out. “You wanted to convince the rest of the Saint’s Order.”
I turn away from Roman to look at Donovan, the only clue the dragon is still alive the rise and fall of his chest. “You needed a dragon to come to France so that you could blame the dragons for killing your father,” I say softly as a chill comes over me at the supreme evil of it all. “Because if they knew you did it, they wouldn’t elect you grandmaster. You went to great lengths to make sure you were standing on the altar in front of all of them at the time your father was murdered and Donovan went missing.”
His hands land on my shoulders, and I can’t keep myself from flinching. “Very good.”
“And that means the Order thinks the dragons broke the accord.”
He barks a laugh of surprise. “He told you about the accord? Your captor was certainly forthcoming.”
Fuck. “Only to explain what he wanted from you. He said he’d taken me to force you to explain why you’d broken the accord by killing Lucy.”
“Hmmm. I suppose I should thank him. So much easier for me to bring you up to speed.” He clasps hishands behind his hips and rocks back on his heels. “You were right when you suspected my father and Donovan were together. Obviously he was more than a family friend. That was a ruse I came up with to explain why they were always... touching. But after you mentioned you believed they were partners, I discovered you were right. The two were mated.”
I try to keep my expression steady. I’d suspected they were together, but mates? The implications madly rush through my head.
“Do you know that mating a dragon bestows a human with health and an unnaturally long life?”
I shake my head.
“No, of course you don’t. But it’s true. My father intended to rule the Order and remain CEO of Cifarelli Enterprises for as long as possible. I’d never havemychance to rule. He planned to steal my birthright from me. When I killed him, it started the clock ticking on Donovan. Now that his mate is dead, he’ll start to age again. Eventually, he’ll go up in flames during his alignment. He’s almost seventy. I might have a few decades left to use his energy, but it’s too risky to keep him around, considering he’s the only one who knows I murdered my father. That’s why I’m collecting his blood. We’ll have enough to last the Order until I can capture another dragon.”
He rests his hands on my shoulders, stroking the bare skin with his thumbs. For a few minutes, I can’t move. It’s like my blood has frozen in my veins from his touch. I stare at Donovan, watching his blood drip, drip, drip into the bag.
“So you murdered your father and blamed it on the dragons, who were there because of Lucy. Who did you blame for killing Lucy?”
“Also the dragons,” he says with a dark chuckle. “They needed an excuse to legitimize their actions.”
“And the Order bought it all?”
